SAFETY
• May 2017 • 15
3 OUT OF 4 CHILD DROWNING CASES HAVE THIS IN COMMON
By Eric Lupton, President, Life Saver Pool Fence & Vice-President, National Drowning Prevention Alliance
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f all the many statistics that have been burned into my memory over the 20 years I have been passionate about drowning prevention, there is one that stands out above the rest. And for some reason, it is not the statistic you hear most often. It isn’t that drowning is the number one accidental killer of children under five or that in 69 percent of fatal drowning incidents one or both parents were responsible for supervision. Those are both jarring figures, and those are the statistics you most often see used as evidence that pool safety and multiple layers of protection are vitally important. But the statistic that most profoundly affects me is this: In 77 percent of fatal drowning incidents, the child was last seen less than five minutes before being discovered in the pool. Five. Minutes. That is the statistic that gives me chills. Why? Because that statistic isn’t just a number; it paints the picture. That statistic, combined with other data we have,
gives you a window into how quickly and easily this tragedy can occur to anyone. Here is what I mean: In more than three out of four fatal drownings, the child was seen less than five minutes before the unthinkable happened. In most of those cases, the child was last seen in the house, nowhere near the pool. In many of those cases, the child was last seen asleep in the bedroom. So, here is the scenario: you check on your toddler who is fast asleep in his room. Safe and sound. You leave, get a cup of water, maybe clean a dish or two, then go back to check on him again just FOUR MINUTES later — barely any time has passed at all. Now, he’s not in his room. You look quickly around the house before running out to the backyard and the pool. And that is where you find him. But it is already too late. The reason that is scary is because it can happen to anyone at any time. Even the best, most attentive parent in the world cannot prevent a scenario like that on her own! There is no substitute for parent supervision, but when you know that in the majority of cases, everything happened in less than five minutes, it is clear that supervision just isn’t enough. This is why Life Saver Pool Fence in-
vented the concept of layers of protection for pool safety more than 25 years ago. No matter how hard we try, there are going to be brief moments when we are not looking directly at our children. Someone knocks on the door, the phone rings, your older child runs inside with a bloody nose from a flying baseball — life happens. Implementing multiple layers of protection is the best way to make sure that these distractions don’t turn into tragedy. Life Saver recommends the six layers of protection prescribed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to supplement parent supervision. They are: 1. High locks on all doors and windows leading to the pool. 2. Alarms on the doors and windows that access the pool. 3. A pool safety fence isolating the pool from the home. This fence should be at least 4-foot tall with a self-closing, selflatching gate. 4. An alarm in the pool and personal immersion alarm on your child, like Safety Turtle. 5. Swimming lessons as early as you and your pediatrician feel comfortable. Infant swim instructors start training babies to roll over and float earlier than you might think. 6. CPR training for you and members of
your family. Administering CPR while paramedics are on the way can literally mean the difference between life and death. The idea is to come as close to a fail-safe system as possible. You cannot drown-proof a child, but every layer of protection that you add significantly reduces the chance of a child drowning incident– the more, the better. Of those steps, pool safety fencing is arguably the most effective at preventing fatal drowning incidents; it is the only one that physically prevents access to the pool, making your pool safer for your children and your neighbors’. Most child victims of accidental drownings had been seen just five-minutes prior. Layers of protection give you the most important thing in the world in this scenario: time. You wouldn’t own a car without seat belts. Don’t own a pool without protecting it.
PHOENIX IS IN A RECALL CRISIS: CPR AND FIRST AID TRAINING
HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO BY DAISY MOUNTAIN FIRE DEPARTMENT
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here’s a crisis in Phoenix that nobody’s talking about. You encounter it every day, on every morning commute. Consider this: 902,000 recalled cars are still on Phoenix’s roads.
Think about that. There are hundreds of thousands of potentially unsafe cars on the roads every day that have the power to hurt you, your family, and other drivers around you. And it’s all because information about recalls is decentralized, unorganized, and notoriously difficult to find. In many cases, people aren’t even aware that their car is in recall. If they do find out about an open recall, they’re often stuck waiting months for a part. Worse, they might not even
know where to service their car, or which centers have recall expertise. This is a mass public concern that’s extremely dangerous—but there’s a way to help that takes less than a minute. WHAT TO DO: 1. Visit www.motorsafety.org 2. Enter your car’s VIN 3. Click “Check recall status” 4. If your car is in recall, you will be directed to a certified dealer to fix the problem MotorSafety.org is a nonprofit dedicated to making recall news centralized and accessible. With over more than 100 million vehicles in America affected by recalls, the need is more pressing than ever to end America’s recall crisis and make our roads safer.
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udden cardiac arrest can occur without warning, to anyone, at any time. It’s a leading cause of death among adults in the U.S. First Aid training helps prepare individuals to deliver initial emergency procedures until first responders arrive. These Community and Workplace classes utilize the American Safety and Health Institute (ASHI) curriculum and certified instructors. Satisfactory completion of the course entitles students to a certificate valid for two years from date of completion. Registration is required. Space is limited. The cost is $25 per student, per class, due at the start of class, payable with exact change or check made payable to Daisy Mountain Fire Department. Please contact Paul Schickel at 623-6951424 or Paul.Schickel@DMFD.org to register, or if you’d like to schedule these classes for your group of eight or more.
CPR TRAINING WHEN: Thu May 18, 2017 6-10pm WHERE: Daisy Mountain Fire Department, 43814 N New River Road, New River, AZ 85087 DESCRIPTION: Class format is partially lecture and partially practical (hands-on). Completion of the course requires students to demonstrate proficiency on mannequins while on the floor. REGISTER ONLINE: https://goo.gl/ TFpqFP FIRST AID TRAINING WHEN: Thu May 25, 2017 6-10pm WHERE: Daisy Mountain Fire Department, 43814 N New River Road, New River, AZ 85087 DESCRIPTION: First Aid for the Community and Workplace, utilizing the American Safety and Health Institute curriculum and certified instructors. Class format is partially lecture and partially practical (hands-on). REGISTER ONLINE: https://goo.gl/ rJXfQG
HYPER LOCAL NEWS FOR THE PHOENIX NORTH VALLEY / deervalleytimes.com
